9 comments on “Muay Thai (Kickboxing) Light Sparring”

Haha, well 2 things:
1. I use EDSF instead of WSAD
2. And yes, I should unbind my backward key for sparring, or at least strafe and use the forward keys more. I am working on it!

It’s amazing to me how much our natural instincts are 100% wrong for fighting. E.g. yesterday I was working with a girl in light sparring who had never sparred. She kept closing her eyes when I would flick a light jab out, or she would try to parry instead of holding her gloves tight against her head – the latter is more consistent for blocking as you might miss with a parry. And our natural instinct is to back straight up when someone is advancing and punching at you, instead of holding one’s ground or pivoting off to the side.

Instead of a party or mitigating the blow (through covering) try “catching” the punches, only covering when caught and not mobile which should send you to clinch+elbow, clinch +dance of death (knees while pulling his head down)..until you regain mobility.

Also master the side kick or thrust heel to cancel incoming flurries and to control opponent’s timing.

I wrestled in high school, and that should help a lot with BJJ, since the hip positioning and wrist control from wrestling are key concepts in BJJ too. The funny thing is I’ve never gotten around to taking BJJ classes at my gym, with the main reason being I’ve always felt I had so much to work on with my Muay Thai technique and conditioning.

I’ve also heard from multiple people who do both disciplines that they get much more dinged up in BJJ, which was a bit counterintuitive but made sense when I thought about it. There’s a tendency with BJJ practitioners to either not tap early enough, or for the opponent to not release a hold as quickly as they should.

I find it interesting that someone with your intellectual capacity has chosen Muay Thai as a training art.

This is a very challenging physical sport that truly puts a lot of strain on the physical body. It’s not unheard of to hear X champions sitting in wheelchairs or limping around for the rest of their lives.

That being said it’s an extraordinary art that offers a strong aspect of two of the five combat ranges: kicking and the standing clinch.

Stepping says well may I ask are you planning to be competitive or is this for mental and physical health?

I’ve found Muay Thai (MT) to really resonate: it’s incredibly effective/damaging, there are 8 points of striking (hands, legs, knees, elbows), and the pad drills with a partner are a great workout. Learning choreography for combinations when hitting pads has also been very good stimulation mentally – you learn footwork, balance, and hand-eye coordination.

I train MT 100% as an enthusiast – striking is very satisfying and it’s a kick-ass workout (no pun intended), but I have no plans to do competitive fighting for the following reasons:
1. getting into shape to do a “smoker” (unsanctioned fight, which is what people do before they do sanctioned “amateur” fights) would take a lot of time. Back in high school, I wrestled and I know you can’t do multiple rounds of a competitive sport without being in great shape. Gassing sucks
2. in smokers, you can throw knees, which meaningfully increases the chances of injury
3. there have been a few times where I’ve hurt others in sparring. In the past year, I accidentally popped my friend’s eardrum when I hit him too hard with a left hook, and it took like 6 weeks for that to heal. I’ve leg kicked people hard enough that they went down due to pain. Those times I felt like a complete jackass. I don’t really want to inflict pain and especially injury on another person IRL. Now granted, in a competitive fight it’s 2 people signing up for hitting each other. And if ever I have to defend myself IRL, I would try to do so
4. I’m over 40 and the cost/benefit simply isn’t there for me. If I got a head or other injury that compromised my ability to earn income, I’d feel like an idiot

This isn’t to say I think competitive fighting is bad. I am a huge MMA fan. I have the upmost respect for fighters at the amateur level and pro level. Those guys are badasses.